100 days after tornado, residents see progress, problems

Friday

Aug 5, 2011 at 12:01 AM

About 92 percent of the estimated 10 million cubic yards of debris have been removed from the state. In Tuscaloosa city, about 70 percent of the debris has been removed, and the remaining 30 percent will take three to four months because much of it are structures that need to be razed, Maddox said.

By Adam JonesStaff Writer

TUSCALOOSA | Russell Goldfinger can still smell the tornado when he rides through Alberta, where he and two roommates rented a house before the April 27 storm blew it away.The University of Alabama student from Huntsville said he rolls up his window to avoid the odor.“It smells like earth and trees and death and other stuff,” he said.It's been 100 days since that tornado, an EF4, ripped through Tuscaloosa County along with 61 others across Alabama in an historic outbreak that killed at least 47 people in the county and 247 across the state.There has been remarkable progress in 100 days, but many survivors, such as Goldfinger, are still dealing with the aftermath, their lives forever changed, waiting for whatever the new normal will mean.Goldfinger still has an active appeal of his denial for aid from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and was forced to leave his job in Tuscaloosa over the summer because the tornado totaled his Jeep. In fact, the rubble of his rental house on 25th Avenue East is nearly untouched, and his Jeep is still crammed into a hole on the property.“It's pretty tough going back,” he said.There's no going back, of course, for Tuscaloosa. The city is preparing to adopt a long-range plan that would radically change the look of the damaged areas, and the Holt community is attempting to draft its own plan. But it will be months, if not years, before the roots of those plans are evident.“We will be in recovery for the foreseeable future,” said Tuscaloosa Mayor Walt Maddox. “I sense the mood of the city is one of optimism, but I think there is an understanding that there is a long way to go.”

The No. 1 priority 100 days out isn't much different than a month after the tornado. Storm debris still must be picked up, even though there has been significant progress.“We have to start showing a sense of normalcy, and you need to pick up the debris and have it removed,” said Jeff Byard, state coordinating officer for the disaster for the Alabama Emergency Management Agency.About 92 percent of the estimated 10 million cubic yards of debris have been removed from the state. In Tuscaloosa city, about 70 percent of the debris has been removed, and the remaining 30 percent will take three to four months because much of it are structures that need to be razed, Maddox said.In Tuscaloosa, it's important to have debris mostly picked up as school begins and, a few weeks later, University of Alabama football brings fans to Tuscaloosa, Byard said.“That's a sense of normalcy, and, in order to show that, we have to show there has been a concerted effort to pick up debris,” Byard said.Byard and Michael Byrne, FEMA's coordinating officer for the disaster in the state, said the debris should be nearly all picked up well before the six-month deadline in October.“That's something that's pretty impressive, and it didn't happen by accident,” Byrne said.FEMA used the Alabama disaster to try out a new program in which the federal government paid for 90 percent of debris removal, instead of the usual 75 percent, in the first two months after the disaster. Dubbed Operation Clean Sweep, the program also fast-tracked debris removal from private property, and Byard and Byrne credit the program for Alabama being ahead of the pace compared to cleanup after other large disasters.“We've actually set the standard and raised the bar for debris removal in a large-scale disaster,” Byrne said.Demolition comes after debris is picked up, and the Tuscaloosa City Council recently approved a resolution that allows debris contractors to demolish damaged private properties. Residents can call 311 to have their property razed, but Maddox said that eventually the city will be forced to condemn and remove damaged structures and bill the property owner. Tuscaloosa County Probate Judge Hardy McCollum said the county, too, will have authority under state public health laws to condemn and remove damaged structures.Despite the looming hassle of property condemnation, McCollum said he is pleased with the speed of debris removal.“I feel very proud about where we are,” he said.

The next step is rebuilding, and although some homes and businesses have been repaired or rebuilt, the areas the tornado swept through remain mostly barren.Maddox said rebuilding will likely accelerate near the end of the year and begin in earnest in early 2012. Rebuilding will take years, he said.“The sounds of hammers will become common course over the next several years,” Maddox said.For now, though, survivors are mostly waiting as the process for obtaining insurance payments, loans and government aid continues. Although the deadline to apply for FEMA grants or disaster loans through the Small Business Administration was July 18, not every application is resolved.Before the deadline, 88,076 Alabamians and their families had applied for aid with FEMA, which can grant up to $30,200 to disaster victims to cover needs not met by insurance. Of those, 15,957, or about 18 percent, have been approved for about $68 million in grants. That's the same approval rate for areas in Tennessee affected by spring tornadoes, but lower than Georgia's 22 percent approval rate and Mississippi's 24 percent, according to FEMA data.Tuscaloosa County's approval rate is higher at 27 percent, and the county has received the most in FEMA grants. About $15 million has been awarded to 3,521 applicants in the county out of 12,936 applications, according to FEMA.Byrne said his staff is researching the seemingly low approval rate for Alabama, but the rate may turn out to be accurate for the disaster, he said. Less than 2 percent of people initially turned down for FEMA aid appealed, and more than 13,000 applications are still waiting for insurance settlements, he said.“The more research we are doing shows that it may be the right number,” Byrne said.He encouraged those who feel they were denied FEMA aid in error or have more information since first applying to appeal their decision.One sign that the recovery process is further along is the closure of the federal disaster centers staffed by FEMA and the SBA to answer questions and handle applications. Once numbering near 50 centers, the last three in the state closed July 28. FEMA handed over operations of its Disaster Recovery Centers to the SBA July 11, about a week before the deadline to apply for aid. SBA then closed the centers. FEMA has to balance the cost of operating centers against the need, and traffic to the centers was dwindling near the end, Byrne said.Immediately after the storms, FEMA estimated 100,000 applications for aid could have been filed, and Byrne said 88,000 actual applications is within the margin of error of FEMA's early estimate.“We got all the applications we were going to get,” he said.Byrne and Byard said they are pleased with the recovery process so far.“We are not declaring victory by any means,” Byard said. “We've got a lot of work to do.”

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